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Monster Madness: A Book Illustrated in 24 Hours

Last year I challenged myself to see how many monsters I could draw in a 24 hour time period. The answer was- 50. A few days later, I decided i might as well turn the experiment into an art book: and Monster Madness was born!

OK, I know what you are thinking -- was it REALLY illustrated in 24 hours? Yes. However, that doesn't mean I dug deep into my art school past and deprived myself of sleep through any means necessary. I wasn't working wide-eyed into the morning, shaking from the coffee and blinded by the intensity of the task at hand, praying that the next brush stroke might just magically make everything feel "finished". (Ohhh no, I learned first hand the dangers of that kind of sleep deprivation a few years before when I came out of college with a BFA and a sleep disorder -- but that is another story for another time.) In this story I took 24 hours -- with some strategically places naps and breaks for food. When the 24 hours was up, I took my stack of monsters and designed a book around them - with a custom logo for each monster on it's facing page to polish everything off.

I originally released the book last year around christmas as a hand-bound art book. The books them selves were kind of craft pieces: with fabric-wrapped covers, I only made a few because they were so labor-intensive. To my delight I sold the majority of them and was overwhelmed by the amount of positive response I received for the designs. Now that the holidays are approaching again, and I am entering the season with more resources at my disposal, I have decided to re-release the book. This time, instead of being a hand-made art piece, I will actually be publishing a run of 8x8 perfect-bound books. The next generation of "Monster Madness" will be available in the coming weeks along with some new products based on some of the most popular characters within it.

Stay tuned for an update on the production run and new products that will accompany it.

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Kelly Meissner is a working artist in the Philadelphia area. After working as a tattoo artist, she created Ugly Apparel, a clothing line inspired by cartoons, clothing and tattoo culture. TheUglyChick.com is a blog with articles about her business experiences, design process and artwork and purchase Ugly Apparel.